Once again,
Both do include an anthropology that explains why most people aren’t compassionate – which can be extrapolated into a theory of why “Christianity” and “Buddhism” as social phenomena constantly risk being turned to violent and non-compassionate ends.
Yes, that’s what I’m counting on.
My Mc likes war more than anything. What better than a war they are not likely to win.
Could theurgy change that? I suppose the Thaumatarchy hasn’t managed to find that out yet. Then we could just kill thousands at a time and brainwash the rest to love that and mate. That way no rebellion and all the blood you’ll ever need.
That will also kill humnity and become Empire stale and impossible to change and advance if absolutely EVERYTHING is indoctrinated there are no art no invention no anything that makes human humans. It reminds me the Mass Effect 2 portrayal of harvesters collectors being in fact proteans. As Mordin said There is no culture or soul in them all are substituted by tech to point there is nothing left. Indoctrination does that
But it says when you talk to Horion, “You’ve never met or heard of anyone who’s willingly crossed that Ward.” But if Huette crossed it, then we have.
I’m guessing he’s sterile?
Also, how do they pick Ennearchs?
And if you’re going for Inner Voice, there may not be much they can do.
Thanks for the excellent and comprehensive reply.
Glad the spoiler policy is, and will be, relaxed. Will hopefully also be conducive to deeper discussions.
This makes a lot of sense in the long-term, too; once we’re four books deep it’ll be tricky for a newcomer to avoid major spoilers whilst searching for entry-level info.
On teleology: coincidentally, earlier this week the concept of ‘everything has an intrinsic purpose’ was proposed to me (teleology but phrased differently). After brief consideration I casually dismissed it as nonsense, as, to my understanding, ‘purpose’ is a purely relative concept and doesn’t really exist from an objective universal perspective. I proposed that a knife’s purpose is not to cut; it is simply an object which is capable of cutting, and I think that’s a very significant difference.
Just thought this was interesting as I wasn’t aware it was a formalised philosophical concept until now, and I’d unintentionally been stepping on some rather large toes. It’s very interesting to discuss and learn about more complex aspects of society and its quirks via the vehicle of a fictional narrative. Fiction reflects reality!
Thank you very much indeed for confirming this outright.
This seems like a very mature take on the XoRverse, and I’m looking forward to seeing the dynamics develop differently depending on the MC’s views. Since ‘magick’ is certainly a real force to some degree I’m curious to what extent Theurgy will be explained with scientific or spiritual methods.
I’ve had versions of this concept presented to me many times; the concept that religion is beneficial for society as it brings people together, makes them feel better, soothes their fears and strengthens their resolves. That is to say, it makes life easier for all involved.
Without getting deep into it I’d generally posit that, from a long-term civisilation-wide perspective, people don’t require “the gods” in order to get along with each other. There are plenty of rational reasons for humans to work in concert with each other to build better futures for all; “because we want to go to heaven” seems very old-fashioned thinking indeed. I personally want to leave a better world behind for everyone still living in it, and I’d like to develop my MC’s Kenon along these lines.
Further to this, it’s generally established and accepted that “hard truths > easy lies” and I think, although it will be a tough and load road, the same rule applies to humanity as a whole, too.
I’d ultimately hope to see Kenon presented as more of a “philosophy” than a “religion,” though it sounds as though we’ll have a variety of choice to shape the various religions as we see fit - really looking forward to seeing how all this plays out.
Will there be a cosmopolitan-style “let everyone do their own religion instead of trying to convert everyone to the same one”-type option in the long-term? I.e. the MC says “I don’t care about the Angels but you guys seem to, so do what makes you happy, just show up to work on time and be cool with each other.”
You seem to be working on the premise that humans spend more than five seconds thinking about other people. And the Angels are very useful to get helots willingly submitting to Harrowing. If they think that they are laying down their lives to save the world from Xaos, they probably won’t rebel, whereas if we told them that they were dying to bring another Plektos or Theurge-forged weapon into the world they’d have a much higher chance of rebelling.
I am Spanish and went to a great private school with scholarship but was a hard core Catholic opus dei nun ruled school Or you directly called it a Indotrination kids center with wonderful forced activities as jailing literally my class in a monastery one day In spiritual retirement… teaching us the sins of masturbating Homosexuals and or communists.
The teaching of love and respect were lost in a interminable hate propaganda and censorship about how Catholic are far better than rest of Christianity. And other shit that makes my blood boil.
It is hard see religion as something tht bing people together when supposed Catholics insulting other people everyday in my city . Then if I look around each church or town with more than two centuries old and close my eyes I could imagine the screaming of agonizing people killed by inquisition.
That’s a universal principle for me Humanity always finds a way to justify killing others.
I absolutely am. “People are awful and nobody cares about anybody but themselves” is an assertion I simply don’t agree with.
I’ve seen plenty of awful people do awful things, as have we all, but in the vast majority of cases it could be explained with “the circumstances of their upbringing were insufficient to produce a loving and productive member of society.”
This is, therefore, not a case of the individual being an inherently “bad person,” but, in a civilisation-wide, long-term sense, an entirely fixable issue.
As we’ve previously discussed, I’m basically playing the story from the opposite end of the spectrum to you - my goals are to see how far helots can be raised up from the dirt and let to live as “normal people.” To achieve this we’ll certainly need to stop feeding them soothing lies in order to facilitate their murder on a mass scale.
@Havenstone Does Slow-Harrowing use more blood than it receives?
Ahhhhhhh. 
The penny has dropped. Thanks, I’ll fix that.
The Thaumatarch picks them, at his sole discretion. That said, usually there will be successors being groomed by each Ennearch. Cerlota was one of those, as you’ll discover.
Human minds and emotions are complex beyond the power of Theurgy to shape (or at least beyond what any Theurge can make sense of in trance, which amounts to the same thing).
A former roommate of mine, now a philosophy professor, told me he approved of XoR simply because he hoped it would add telos to more people’s vocabulary. I’ll let him know we have confirmation.
Agreed – but here again we need to make sure we’re not jumping around between broad and narrow definitions of religion. Plenty of religion is non-theistic, i.e. not resting on “the gods.” As for heaven, it’s not even part of all theisms (early Judaism, for famous example).
All kinds of ideas about ultimate reality end up filling the social space loosely called “religion.” What they have in common is the power to generate a set of practices, rituals, and beliefs that create a strong sense of shared meaning, shared reality – and thus of shared identity. With the ever present possibility of that turning toward exclusion of non-practicers, as Mara vividly illustrated from her own experience.
Another thing they generate is a shared rationality – a set of axioms and rules within which our thoughts and actions can be justified to our neighbors. Within every rationality, there are reasons to work in concert for the common good and a better future… but as we’re seeing reconfirmed these days, it’s also possible within any framework to rationalize selfishness, in-group benevolence, exclusion of outsiders, despair, passivity.
“Hard truth > easy lies” is a tremendously appealing part of just about any mature belief system. Ask any Calvinist about original sin or reprobation of the damned, or any Hindu about karma and samsara. Every system has its hard “truths.” Nobody wants to think they only believe something because it’s easy or comforting… even if consoling illusions creep into all our minds in the end, including perhaps the dream of a single universal rationality and shared vision of the good.
In XoR, you will absolutely have the choice to be the candidate of “non-religious non-religion,” and/or “I don’t care what you believe about the Angels as long as you don’t believe in the Thaumatarchy.” This will have ample advantages in a religiously divided context.
However, you will be passing up on a key opportunity to create that strong sense of shared reality that binds large populations together – abandoning a fundamental tool of the social engineer. “Religion” in the broad sense can be much more effective than enlightened self-interest in overcoming collective-action dilemmas.
You might of course turn to nationalism instead – or just see how far you can get without resort to those big but dangerous sources of social glue!
All that said, if you take too cynical a perspective on religion – too much the social engineer – you’ll also risk losing your followers to a genuine prophet. Religion is never just an opiate. A religious tradition always makes possible the critique as well as the validation of any social order.
One reason compassion and justice are close to the heart of virtually every religion is the human tendency to spend (much) more than 5 seconds thinking about other people. Dismiss that tendency at your peril, if you’re truly looking for religious legitimacy.
And Slow-Harrowing uses WAY more blood than it yields.
Oh, my MC genuinely believes it. I was simply observing that it’s very useful to keep the lower classes in line.
Really, thank you very much for writing this. I agree with much of it, though could never phrase it so succinctly or eloquently, and much of it is entirely educational and new to me.
Really excited for the future of the series - there is a lot to look forward to.
We were having a discussion about state decadence on the Discord, and I was wondering how long we’d be able to stay in Aekos post-siege? Long enough to throw a party celebrating victory?
Hopefully as my mc intends to go for secularism and a free religious market for all lawful religions and spiritual beliefs.
Known your pc skills and ways I am portraying a Robespierre Freedom of Religion he started … Then Termidor and Republi goddess and guillotine unfaithful.
This should be interesting, yeah. A lot of this discussion reminds me of the ultimately very flawed attempts by the Sassanians to establish a Zoroastrian ‘church’ in their empire, attempts undermined by religious chauvinism and your ‘genuine’ prophets: your Manis and Mazdaks, along with the Nestorians. Social engineering gone wrong indeed!
Of course, for this game, I think I might be trying to take a page out of a certain Ismaili sect’s book. Everything is permitted for the right cause, yes?
I wonder if people will look more kindly on mc’s theurgy if they are declared eclect?
My INT 2 mc only reveals his theurgy to the band after Linos declares him eclect, so I feel he can make a pretty strong case that his magic is a real gift from the Angels.
Now that I think about it, a sudden display of theurgy could’ve given the declaration some serious oomph.
It wouldn’t be my mc’s intent, but, yes, revolutions and social engineering both can devolve.
Still after the revolution monarchism never seemed to be able to really stick in France again, so that’s success of a sort if my mc’s revolution, even if it devolves, ends up being that to slavery and the caste system.